


bend or break

by peterstank



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, missing moments from dragonstone and beyond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-12 23:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18457268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterstank/pseuds/peterstank
Summary: Together they sailed, together they will fight, and together they will rule.II. — JONHe had not meant to draw forth a blush but when it comes, blossoming on her cheeks like petals in spring, his heart skips a beat. It begins to dance to another tune, a song that is unfamiliar and yet thrilling in nature. He has never quite felt such a way, never danced along this edge, so dangerous and jagged.{in-between moments from dragonstone to winterfell: jonerys centric}





	1. Chapter 1

I. 

DAENERYS

It is only after the sky has turned from a dismal shroud of ash to a churning black tempest that Dany finally finds herself alone. Her hand is pale and trembling, fingers curled around a glass of chilled plumwine that remains untouched. She cannot bring herself to partake or even move at all; struck as she is by the swelling mass that will soon enough break, collapsing with its own pent up pressure to release a torrent upon them, relentless icy sheets of water slapping against the walls of her ancestral keep.

The sea will churn and swell, before falling without mercy on the slate precipice that serves as the castle foundation. No doubt the long strand below will be smoothed by morning, appearing virgin to the eye.

Dany manages a swallow before sucking in a sharp breath. The air is so cold it feels like shards in her lungs that may very well rip her to shreds from within. She is envious of her children in that moment, wishing dully that she were full of flame as they are. Surely the weather bothers them little, for with a flap of their wings they can be somewhere else.

In that moment she is tempted to forget the woes that curl inside of her like a snake. She wants to grab her cloak and throw it over her shoulders, sneak through the servant passages and make her way to the cliff’s edge, facing the winds fully, calling for Drogon. She could damn them all and simply leave, abandon this tiresome quest for the Iron Throne and all of the trouble it has already caused her.

She could fly away in search of a distant someplace, a home. Her mind conjures up an image of a house, one with pristine pearly white walls and a red door; a lemon tree outside her window and the smell of its bitter citrus permeating the sticky salt air.

 _No, that is not the way._ Claiming the throne no longer stems from a distant desire instilled from birth, fueled by all of her brother’s raving rants. She can see him still, lilac eyes burning bright and cheeks flushed red, pacing polished floors, describing to her all of the ways he could bring demise upon the usurper.

Taking back the crown has become something of a necessity. It is no longer a choice. Her dreams and waking moments alike are steeped in ideological speculation of what could be, of what will be, once she reclaims what belongs to her.

_Does it belong to me?_

Even still there remains the doubt, a niggling tenacious plague that hovers in the recesses of her mind—based in fear, in useless insecurities. _Can I do such a thing? Can I rule over a realm I know so little about?_

Over and over she has adapted, changed herself, chipped pieces away: her innocence, her sweetness, her smallness. She has surrendered herself to the wills of others, folded herself, shoved parts of herself down so deep they are near unattainable.

_I can do it again._

Or can she? The earlier meeting with Jon Snow had not gone as well as she had hoped. Daenerys had handled it all wrong, she realises now. Tyrion had warned her before that the northerners were simple people, turning their backs on ostentatious presentations and gaudy displays of power. Her back had straightened as Missandei, ever the loyal and proud friend, had listed off her many titles. Upon reflection she cringed.

_This is Jon Snow. He’s King in the North._

Dany had felt a white hot fire churn within her at those words, a truth thrown out like a rock into deep water, so casual and cavalier. King, she had thought, looking down at the young man before her. He was smaller than she had expected—nothing like she had expected at all, really.

When Viserys had described northmen, he had thrown out words like brute and savage and heathen. In truth Dany had been bracing herself for some goat-skin clad barbarian with wild eyes and a scraggly unkept beard.

The reality had been startling and not altogether... _displeasing_ to the eye.

She had tried to keep calm, to keep a lid on her temper as the conversation progressed gradually from polite insouciance to near overt hostility. She had advanced upon him, the heels of her boots clapping against the stone ground of the throne chamber as she closed in like a dragon hunting prey.

And he had watched her, to her eye perhaps a little awed but not enough to change his mind. He held himself with a quiet sort of dignity, one he was likely unaware he even possessed, and was enveloped in a solemn savor. It hovered in the air around him like a storm cloud, igniting her curiosity against her own will. For the first time in so very long she found herself wondering about this man, wondering about a stranger, wanting to ask a thousand questions. _What happened to you? What is it that has made you so sad?_

_How can I make that go away?_

Dany feels her cheeks burn even now despite being all on her own. No one can hear her thoughts, and yet she feels shamed by them. Shamed, embarrassed, and... excited.

He is a stranger. They have had only two conversations, but both of them had left her feeling a fool. It is startling to realise that despite the short spaces in which they had spoken, she is humbled by him.

A king who did not seem to want the title, who oftentimes looked as though he wanted to shrink into himself and disappear; glaring at the ground as if pleading with it to swallow him whole. He is honest with his heritage, with his bastardy. He wears it like armour, as she wears all of her wounds and betrayals, clinking around her neck like a maester’s chain.

 _All men like what they’re good at,_ she had said, sure of this patent truth. She hadn’t expected a reply; she had expected the words to shame him into silence, and instead had been met with a response, uttered in that morose northern brogue: _I don’t._

She had found him insolent and stubborn and foolish, and then perhaps maddened with his claims—white walkers, grumpkins, snarks. Bedtime stories. Even in Essos she had heard them. She could recall being little and small and frightened, tucked under silken covers with her hands over her eyes as that dear old bear, Ser Willam Derry, had regaled her with stories of ice spiders and the long night.

Ruling over a graveyard, he had said. An interesting choice of words. Even more interesting had been those of his companion, Ser Davos Seaworth. _He took a knife in the heart for his people. He gave his own life—_

The old man had been cut off with a sharp look from Jon Snow, leaving them all in a momentary chasmic, disbelieving silence.

He came here and painted tales, Daenerys thinks now, turning away from the aperture of smooth grey stone. She swirls her wine and at last takes a long swallow, letting the coolness soothe her frayed nerves. A little more, and then more after and she is lightheaded, pleasantly eased.

 _Jon Snow_ , she thinks, walking around the long, solid mahogany depiction of her homeland. Her finger, pale white, runs from the marked place for Sunspear all the way north. Her nail digs into the crevice of a letter, stopping at the capital of the fearsome freezing lands. _Winterfell_. It is where he hails from, and it is a place of great mystery for her.

Snow... Dany has never seen snow before. She has heard tales of it, of its softness and whiteness. This niggles at her and her cheeks flush thinking of his skin, soft and white like snow must be. An apt name, then.

Dany swiftly shoves those thoughts away. He is comely, there is no denying it. One would be a fool to. But he is at best a tentative prospective ally and at worst an outright enemy. She cannot allow herself to wander down that road, that one of darkened nature with thick thorny brambles that will cut; that will scrape away the facade of propriety and detached imperialism she has so carefully and painstakingly crafted.

Dany sighs and sets the wine down. There is something long forgotten awakening within her. It is only a whisper, a mere ember from these sparking thoughts. If she is not careful it could quickly ignite into a wildfire and she will find herself burning, find herself consumed by hot flames of want and need that lick up her body, that turn the world to ash.

It is a dangerous thing to imagine, but her mind strays there anyway, despite her best efforts. _No one can hear me,_ she reminds herself, _no one will ever know..._

He has a pretty face, but he is stubborn and sullen and dangerous. A pretty face, smooth and marred by scars. She hadn’t noticed them when he’d first walked in, but as she got closer she had seen them, and she had liked their look even as she wondered just how it was he had obtained them.

A real man, battle-hardened or so they said. He had endured loss, as she had. Two brothers.

Dany frowns. She splays her fingers over the carefully carved indentation in the table, the symbol that marks his home, and wonders like a child what it must be like to grow up in a place so cold.

“Your Grace?”

Dany starts and jerks away like she has committed some offense, still in a small mindset. She finds only Missandei in the doorway, those bronze eyes glinting in the dim candleglow, tinged with concern and barely contained amusement.

Dany composes herself quickly, a little annoyed. She feels her cheeks burn and looks away. “Is it urgent?”

As usual her first assumption is that her friend and closest advisor has sought her out to inform her of some discontent or the other; perhaps their northern guests are causing trouble with her loyal Dothraki soldiers? Or is it something more dire in nature? She forces herself not to consider the possibilities.

“No, Your Grace,” Missandei replies smoothly. “I was only wondering when you wished to retire? It’s quite late.”

Dany blinks. She plays with the idea of sleep but finds it an unappealing one, knowing she will be unable to fall within its grasp. Her dreams are burdensome things, the meanings vague and eluding her.

She thinks quickly of another dream, one that had come to her so long ago of a faceless lover shrouded in shadow who had served and pleasured her beyond her wildest imaginings, better than any real man she had ever known.

“I think I will take a walk,” Dany proclaims, feeling suddenly flustered and hot within the confines of her own body. The room is open-aired but the winds offer so little comfort as her blood begins to boil.

Missandei’s brow furrows. “Your Grace, the weather—”

“Only around the castle,” Dany assures her, offering a scant smile to her friend in the hopes of soothing some of those worries. It has been a long day and she has been on the receiving end of devastating news, but she will persevere as always.

Missandei nods. “Shall a guard accompany you?”

Dany shakes her head. She goes over to the hearth which is burning low, and were she to stay it would need stoking. She grabs a sable cloak from where it lays splayed against a stool, soft as sin, and throws it around her shoulders. “If I cannot walk alone within the walls of my own home, I am a coward,” she says firmly.

Missandei obviously disagrees, but she knows that Dany is of an obstinate nature and when pushed she will only rear like a horse and push back. The slim woman ducks her head and steps aside to allow Dany passage.

They go their separate ways. Missandei climbs the stone steps to the floor above as Dany retreats, likely planning to ensure Dany’s chambers will be ready when she finally chooses to withdraw, ready for another restless night of wrestling with eerie, strange visions.

Dany walks with purpose, back straight and hands clasped beneath her cloak. She dismisses her guards in their native tongue, the nature of their speech so harsh and obtrusive in the otherwise tranquil hallways, bouncing off the walls to echo down the long slate cloister.

Her feet carry her to the more uninhabited areas of the castle, vacant chambers and darkness around every corner. There are no lit sconces and she feels at ill ease as she roams. Still she pushes on, determined as she is to clear her head.

At last she comes upon the guest wing. There are not many housed here either, but it is not as miserably deserted as the passageways she has just come from. It is lighter and warmer.

Dany rounds a corner and finds herself stopping short, breath caught in her throat and constraining her as she takes in the sight her eyes provide.

He is standing with his back to her in front of the wide open arch, his hair loose and falling in wild ebony curls. He is dressed in breeches and a simple white tunic—which is ridiculously thin given the bite in the air, but she supposes that for a man from the north what is cold to her must be child’s play to him.

Dany wants to make herself turn away, to go back the way she had come, but seeing him like this draws something out of the blackened depths within her soul, yanks it into the bitter electric air of night; a soft gasp, like a maiden’s, so quiet he cannot hear it over the sound of the now raging storm.

The way he looks, a solid and unmovable figure against the backdrop of a swirling deathly impetus, his eyes distant and dark as he takes it all in, lips turned down into a pretty pout... it does something to her, something that does not have a name or perhaps she only refuses to acknowledge, shoving it down quickly as it comes, stinging like bile in the back of her throat. She is torrid as she takes him in, watching as he stands unflinching and unmoved when lighting cracks across the sky in a brilliant golden fissure, unimpressed by the rolling of the thunder that follows.

She feels a fool as her cheeks burn, cursing him for being a living, walking, maiden’s fucking fantasy. How unfair, really. Why couldn’t he have been some uncouth brutish barbarian all wrapped up in wool?

This man, well-muscled, carved as if of marble, hair like raven feathers that flutter around his despondent face in the salty sea breeze...

Dany yanks herself away, thoughts churning and screaming for attention that she will not give. She is a queen, the mother of dragons; a fearsome enemy to those who dare oppose her. She has not the time for sordid sultry thoughts of some man she hardly knows. Though one is rebellious enough to swim to the surface, and it echoes around, refusing to abate. _More beautiful than comely._

That night she again dreams of the lover, though now he is raging with angry ocean waters, and he has a face.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just the buildup to a series of moments between Jon and Dany on Dragonstone that will eventually lead up to... *drumroll* _boatsex_ —because let’s be honest, they were on that island for months, there had to have been loads more than what we saw.
> 
> Tell me your thoughts! Thank you for reading! xoxo


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knows the answer, but it still breaks him to hear her say it. _No,_ a whispered thing lost to the wind, eyes dubious as she meets his gaze and he can see her retreat within herself. He hates to have caused such a doubt; what must it be like to wonder when the madness will take reign? To be the sole honour in the stain of your house?

II.

  
JON

His hands ghost her skin, hovering just above without quite daring to touch for he is afraid of what might happen. What consequences will befall him should he dare lay a hand upon the exalted dragon queen in all her stripped splendour? Will he lose a hand if he were to run his fingers through her hair, silver-gold and gleaming? If he were to touch her rose flushed porcelain skin would fissures form under the pressure? If he were to grab her as he so desired, roughly, would purple bruises blossom around her arms and wrists?

Jon does not know, and he dares not entertain the thought past his dreamscape, within which he is safe at least. He can stare at her as long as he wants, his imagination supplying the finer details like how soft her tresses look spilling out over the ivory silk sheets; how dark her lashes are as they dance against her cheeks; how she glows with a light that comes from within, luminescent with a regal haze, ill-defined around the edges.

She does not _have_ edges, he realises, try as she might to pretend otherwise. She is all supple skin and rounded curves, an innocent in the midst of the chaos of war.

Her eyes flutter open. They are like blooming violets in her sleepy daze, and when she catches sight of him her lips twist up into a languid smile. It is just as she is reaching for him that he wakes.

Jon jolts into a sitting position, chest heaving and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He shivers with the cold though the bite in the air cannot come close to what the early morning hours feel like in the north. Begrudgingly he throws off his blankets which are finer than any he has ever used; heavy damask quilts and sable fells behind crimson velvet curtains. The bed is marked by four posts and carved of lacquered rosewood, marked with depictions of soaring dragons.

He feels at odds here as he does most places, like he cannot quite settle. In Winterfell it is the ghosts which take up too much space, but here it is the opulence. The air is too fit for a bastard to breathe, the floors to grand for a bastard to walk on.

Despite the feeling Jon slips out of the warm folds of his bed and dresses swiftly, growing more comfortable as he slips on his familiar garb. He fumbles with the clasps on his leather gambeson in silence, fingers numb, and then makes his way to the small solar that divides his apartments from Davos.

The older man is already seated at the round table in the centre of the room, upon which a number of confectioneries have been laid: blood oranges and blackberry preserves, tea and water, freshly baked black bread, pastries, and tarts.

It is a far sweeter arrangement than he is used to. Jon has been living off of rashers of blackened bacon and stale bread heels for years, and at Winterfell their food is fresher but still scarce.

“Your Grace,” his advisor greets with more pep than Jon could have mustered under their circumstances, “I was beginning to think you’d never wake.”

“I bet that would please the queen,” Jon says before he can stop himself, settling across from Davos. He does not partake in the food but serves himself to a helping of chilled water. “Seeing as we’re apparently enemies now.”

“I see a good night’s sleep didn’t help your mood any.”

“Does it ever?”

Davos chuckles. “I suppose you’ve got a point. I reckon it must run in your family to be brooding and sullen.”

Jon thinks about that, remembering his father with his lord’s face which he donned in the company of his men and strangers; and then his true face, the one responsible for the wrinkles around his eyes. If he thinks hard enough, he can recall the sound of his laugh, but as with all the rest it is swiftly fading.

“What about you? Is every Seaworth so impossibly optimistic?”

Davos laughs. “No, that’s just me,” he says. “My sons were a dour lot and my wife... Well, she could be sweet like you’d never know, but the next instant madder than a mare in heat. Best weapon was a cast iron pan.”

Jon smiles. He glances down at the water he cradles and watches as it suddenly begins to ripple. His lips twist downward in an instant. The cutlery on the table clatters.

Then a deafening roar rents the air. Jon shoots to his feet with Davos and together they hurry to the stone arch windows, grasping the sill so that they do not fall in their haste. Far down below are churning sea waters slapping against the smooth expanse of rock, which is not a death Jon wishes to experience.

And far above them, gliding through the air like the creature was borne to it, is the largest of the dragons. Its black scales are dusted with red, the colors of House Targaryen. They gleam in the sunlight. Upon its back Jon is just able to spy a streak of silver-gold hair.

“Seven hells,” mutters Davos. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my life, Your Grace, but I’ve never seen anything like that.”

 _Nor have I_ , Jon thinks, but he is far too speechless to utter the words aloud. Instead he watches her, unable to tear his eyes from the sight of them; she can command dragons, bend their wills to her own. Who is he to deny her any wish she casts in his direction? Who are any of them to stand before her and call her anything but ‘my Queen’?

Yet the lords have put their trust in him and it is his duty to lead, to make decisions not based upon ancient oaths of perpetual fealty or blood-soaked feuds, but with their best interests in mind.

With a shake of his head he draws away from the window, unsure why he suddenly feels so ill. “I am going to go walk,” he tells Davos, but the older man is far too captivated to reply.

Jon dons his cloak and gloves before slipping out. He dismisses his guard, making a slow leisurely descent of the steps that are carved right from the stone. This place had not been built from the ground up as with his home, but shaped and moulded into the rock. It is beautiful in its own way, but still a grey and austere place. There are no familiar faces or sounds, no laughs or breaks of sunlight.

He feels increasingly restless as he walks, aware of the eyes that follow him through the darkened hallways. Silent Unsullied soldiers who clutch their spears as if they are an extension of their own arm, relentlessly suspicious of him. No doubt they think of him as a foreign invader in his own right, a pink-skinned usurper.

There are many exits to the castle but Jon does not know the lay of it just yet and so he simply takes the most obvious one, a thrown open set of double doors on the east side. As soon as he steps outside, the scent of the sea only grows more prevalent. Breezes of salt and sting slap his cheeks and make blood blossom there.

Tyrion had told him he was not a prisoner, but still he feels like one. Jon yearns to board his ship once more and sail home, even if it means suffering another month of seasick men and endless rocking waters. He has a feeling his men would rather have him return a failure than a success.

Jon walks along the beach, glaring out at the unreachable vessel which is so close yet so far away. He finds a set of pale limestone steps worked into the side of a cliff-face and climbs those absently, wondering what he could possibly say or do to get the dragon queen and her Essosi advisors to believe his claims. _They have seen dragons,_ he thinks ruefully, _and yet the idea of walking dead men makes them laugh with disbelief?_

The stone gradually fades into thin blades of green grass that shift in the wind, their vibrance dulled by the encroaching winter weather. The sound is soft and peaceful, and Jon finds himself suddenly more relaxed. He walks to the cliff’s edge and stares out over the bay. Waves crest and ebb along the shore, but the body is mostly still.

Before setting sail from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, Jon had never seen the ocean. He had been told of it by Robb before when his brother had accompanied their father on a journey to the northern city of White Harbour, but he himself had stayed behind. Robb had told him that the winds carried a sweet scent and the sound of the sea meeting shore was like a crash of thunder. He had brought Jon back a shell from the beach and Jon had tucked it safely away in his bed-end coffer, a prized possession and then a long-forgotten trinket.

Jon sighs. It is not a pleasant thing standing like a sentry with no purpose. It reminds him of manning the Wall, huddled up against the freezing winds and staring out at the tree-line waiting for wildlings or white walkers. Most nights there had been nothing and so Jon had taken to staring at the moon, keeping track of how it wanted and waxed, wondering if he would ever get the chance to howl at it with his pack again.

“You look very sad.”

He is so deep in his own ruminations he had not noticed her approach, yet there she stands in her leather britches and imperial frock, observing him with a tilted head.

“Your Grace.”

“Did something happen?” asks the Queen, taking a small step forward. Jon is tempted to step back but suppresses the urge lest he fall to his death. “Are your quarters not to your liking?”

“They are fine, Your Grace.” Jon looks her up and down and is loathe to admit that the sight of her does not bring him displeasure; her coiled silver-gold hair twitches with the breeze but keeps its shape, though his thoughts fly wide, imagining what it might be like to pull those braids free and run his fingers through her luminous tresses.

“Are you always so dour, then?”

He cannot help the smile that curls his lips up, try as he might otherwise. “Aye. It’s in my blood.”

“Your father?”

Jon nods. He cannot bring himself to speak. It is always hard to remember Father, to once again realise that while Jon draws breath he never again will; how is he meant to come to grips with things like justice and destiny, to accept that gods are worth their worship when they allow men like Roose Bolton to live longer lives than men like Ned Stark?

“I never knew mine,” Daenerys tells him, though he had already known that. He already knows _many_ things about her, renowned as she is, though there are secrets churning beneath her steely surface and he does not thing she is wont to revealing many, if any. “I know what he was. I know the Mad King earned his name… They say my mother was kinder, a woman with a gentle heart, but I never knew her either.”

“That we have in common.”

She regards him with a barely concealed curiosity. “Do you know anything about her?”

“No,” Jon says shortly, for it is a sore topic. He knew not her name nor what blood she had given him; no matter how many times he had asked his Father, he had never gotten any answers.

Daenerys turns to face him. They are only a few inches apart, and the smell that lingers around her is warmer than he had expected, a spice like cinnamon or cloves. “That seems so cruel, for your Father to have kept such a thing from you.”

“He did not want to offend his wife.”

“His wife,” she repeats dully. “They say Eddard Stark was one of the most honourable men who ever walked.”

“Aye,” says Jon.

“Yet he still had enough dishonour in him to step outside the marriage bed?”

Jon’s head whips around, a lick of anger pulsing through him and she must sense it. She does not balk but does duck her head. “Forgive me, that was…”

He deflates. “It’s alright. You’re not wrong, anyway.”

“Still, I asked you not to judge me for the sins of my father. I shouldn’t be hurdling your own father’s sins at you.”

Jon shrugs. “He regretted it. I know he loved me, but still he regretted it. I could tell by the way he looked at me sometimes. He always seemed so… sad.”

Silence reigns between them for a moment as it dawns upon Jon what he has said; that he had confessed to her such a thing, cast out such a raw honest confession to a virtual stranger…

“Perhaps he merely wanted a better life for you,” Daenerys suggests quietly. “Perhaps he regretted he could not offer you the same things as his trueborn sons.”

“Perhaps,” Jon acquiesces, though he does not fully believe it. There had been something more to that heavy sadness his father had carried around with him like an extra heart, something of greater substance.

Daenerys purses her lips, full and rosy, and like a lead weight he feels all of his unease part way to let his desire drop heavy in his stomach. It draws his eyes to her mouth, taking in the slight sheen to them. They are likely glossed with rose oil, and Jon wonders what that might taste like.

Her eyes light on him and then they are ensnared together. Breathing is a laborious thing.

“Did you seek me out for a reason, Your Grace?”

He had not meant to draw forth a blush but when it comes, blossoming on her cheeks like petals in spring, his heart skips a beat. It begins to dance to another tune, a song that is unfamiliar and yet thrilling in nature. He has never quite felt such a way, never danced along this edge, so dangerous and jagged.

The queen stares at him with parted lips and then blinks, coming back to herself. “I only wished to remind you that my bloodriders and Unsullied will be waiting in the cave come sunrise. They are my strongest and most hard-working men.”

“Do you not have any women fighting for you?”

Genuine surprise grasps her features and he thinks to himself, foolishly rebellious, that she is adorable when she has been confounded. “I was under the impression that women were seen as subservient in Westeros. Or is it different in the north?”

She cocks her head and fixes him with an innocent stare, waiting for him to be abashed by his own words, but Jon only shrugs again. Will this meagre rise and fall of his shoulders never cease to embarrass him in front of this figure of eloquence? _I am no king._

“It depends,” he admits. “On Bear Island, the women fight alongside the men, but the Manderlys of White Harbour originally hail from the south—they were exiled from the Reach but still follow the Seven, so the women are more… docile. But my sister Sansa’s sworn shield, the Lady Brienne of Tarth, also follows the Seven and she can knock down just about anyone as well as any man. I figured perhaps you would encourage the practise of women training and fighting, given your own… position of authority.”

The queen seems nonplussed. Perhaps in a desperate effort to regain even footing she clasps her hands together and begins to walk, and so Jon follows. “And do you? Encourage the practise of women fighting?”

“Aye,” Jon says, as his eyes are drawn skyward to the sight of the three dragons, distant shadowy silhouettes, circling and weaving around one another. They are specs just now but they are still weapons, still dangerous. “We need every fighter we can get.”

“It seems the world is changing.”

“It has to if we’re going to survive.” Jon tears his eyes away and back to her, an easier sight to handle though she is a dragon in her own right. “What would you change?”

“What _will_ I change,” she corrects immediately, but favours him with a smile that is not unkind. The sweetness of it, something she reigns in and holds back, does not escape him. It seeps into some crack along his surface and settles down in his heart, casting a warmth there he has not felt for some time.

“What _will_ you change, then?”

The queen sighs. “I won’t lie to you and claim I know everything about a land I’ve never even visited. From what I’ve been told, every kingdom seems to have their own customs, their own secrets and way of doing things.”

“Then why not let them break away from the crown?” Jon asks, before he can stop himself.

She stops short and rounds on him, her words acerbic. “If every land ruled for itself there would be chaos. In order to prevent petty wars and detrimental schemes—”

“You are assuming that the rulers don’t know what’s best for their own lands,” Jon interrupts without thinking. “Did having a king prevent wars before? Does having a throne not make detrimental schemes more liable given there’s an ultimate seat of power to obtain? If you don’t _know_ them, they won’t respect your authority to _rule_ them.”

This he knows. He saw it with Stannis, with the Free Folk, and with his own people besides. He waits for her anger, for acrimonious tones with bitter edges or a righteous fury to outmatch even the late King Robert, but she simply stares. “Your brother caused a war when he decided to break away from the crown.”

“ _Joffrey Lannister_ started that war when he beheaded my father—”

“Who served as the usurper’s hand and was his best friend, no?”

Jon frowns. “What happened to setting aside my father’s sins?” he asks of her, and watches her prickle, only to deflate seconds later. “What else was he meant to do but go to war, after your brother kidnapped and raped my aunt? Would you have respected him more had he stood aside and let her be murdered? He didn’t fight because he _wanted_ to, Your Grace. He did it because he had to.”

She looks away, eyes trailing over the hazy horizon. They are a peculiar colour, blue and green and grey like the sea. Despite his anger he finds himself mesmerized by them and forgets just what it was that had riled him up to start with.

“I don’t believe that,” she whispers at last.

“Don’t believe what? Your Grace?”

“My brother… he wasn’t an evil man. From all that I’ve heard he was kind, and loyal, and honest. He would not have…”

“Did you ever know him?”

He knows the answer, but it still breaks him to hear her say it. _No_ , a whispered thing lost to the wind, eyes dubious as she meets his gaze and he can see her retreat within herself. He hates to have caused such a doubt; what must it be like to wonder when the madness will take reign? To be the sole honour in the stain of your house?

“I cannot allow every kingdom to declare their sovereignty,” she says at last, voice reclaiming that hard edge. “It’s why we have wardens, to watch over the lands in place of the crown. Unless you would have all of us to band together to fight this army of the dead only to break apart once the fighting is done with?”

It is a good point. Jon glances down at his boots, muddied and well-worn and half hidden by vert. “I like to think one day there will be something to return to, that perhaps the fighting _will_ end, but I have seen the army of the dead, Your Grace. When they come… We’ll be lucky if there are any kingdoms left to squabble over.”

She leans back from him, perhaps shaken by his words or perhaps merely to better observe the madman standing before her. Jon meets her gaze steadily.

“We should not waste our time worrying over something that has yet to come to pass,” she says airily. “There is still a wall between us and the dead, but there is no such thing between us and Cersei.”

“Aye,” he says, “I’d still take Cersei Lannister over the Night King any day.”

The queen takes it for a jest and almost smiles. It is well-suppressed but he can see the echo of her amusement in her eyes.

“Your Grace,” he says, and with a quick duck of his chin in deference leaves her to ponder over the wild imaginings of the northern heathen who has stolen a kingdom from her grasp.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure if anyone is much interested in this anymore, what with season 8 being out and all, but I DO plan on including missing moments all the way from boatsex to Winterfell and beyond. Once season 8 is over, I’ll start posting in-between moments from that, too—I just don’t want to fuck anything up by posting something only to have it disproven once the next episode comes out. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked this one! Brooding!Jon is always fun to write.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just the buildup to a series of moments between Jon and Dany on Dragonstone that will eventually lead up to... *drumroll* _boatsex_ —because let’s be honest, they were on that island for months, there had to have been loads more than what we saw.
> 
> Tell me your thoughts! Thank you for reading! xoxo


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